A U.S. district judge escalated her attack on executive authority to control immigration on Friday by indefinitely blocking the Trump administration from revoking Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students.

The preliminary injunction, which extends her initial temporary restraining order, was issued by Judge Allison Burroughs, an Obama appointee serving in Massachusetts. She issued the initial restraining order within hours of the lawsuit being filed.

She also happens to be the judge who issued a ruling greenlighting Harvard’s racialized admissions scheme that was overturned by the Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, making affirmative action unconstitutional, as well as the judge assigned to Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration for freezing $2.2 billion in funding.

At every turn, Burroughs is there to defend Harvard, no matter what the university does or whose constitutional authority is undermined by her decision-making.

Here, she is blocking the Trump administration from controlling the massive influx of foreign students to Harvard, despite the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has pointed to coordination with the Chinese Communist Party and anti-American sentiment among foreign students.

In May DHS revoked Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) for a host of reasons, with Secretary Kristi Noem pointing out that “it is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments.”

Burroughs “enjoined [the Trump administration] from implementing, instituting, maintaining, or giving any force or effect to” the SEVP and “directed” the administration to “immediately prepare guidance to Defendants’ officers, staff, employees, and contractors — including but not limited to those at each consulate, embassy, field office, and port of entry — to disregard the May 22, 2025 Revocation Notice and to restore every visa holder and applicant to the position that individual would have been absent such Revocation Notice.”

She canceled the entire revocation, which would have blocked any current or future foreign student from continuing or starting enrollment at Harvard and did not give a reason why.

Foreign students represent about 27 percent of Harvard’s student body, or 6,793 students in the 2024-2025 school year.

The Trump administration attempted to get the school to reform its vetting and admissions process, but Harvard declined in April, stating that it “will not surrender its independence” — except, apparently, to its CCP clients and others.

Harvard has also been accused of failing to properly report foreign funding, which amounts to $1.1 billion since 2017, according to Open the Books. The U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into Harvard “after discovering inaccurate foreign financial disclosures.”

Breccan F. Thies is a correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.